George Washington
b. 1732 · d. 1799
Planter, military commander, and first President of the United States. Master of Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799, and a regular presence in Alexandria, which he helped survey in 1749.
George Washington, born at Popes Creek, Virginia, in 1732, inherited the Mount Vernon estate from his half-brother Lawrence’s widow in 1761 and expanded it over the following three decades into a five-farm plantation of roughly 8,000 acres [1] Powell, History of Old Alexandria, 1928 Book . As a seventeen-year-old apprentice surveyor he assisted in the 1749 plat of Alexandria, and he retained close commercial and social ties to the town throughout his life, attending Christ Church and stopping frequently at Gadsby’s Tavern.
Washington commanded the Continental Army through the American Revolutionary War and served two terms as the first president of the United States (1789–1797). He held hundreds of enslaved people at Mount Vernon over his lifetime; his will directed their manumission upon the death of his widow, Martha [2] Miller, Artisans and Merchants, 1991 Book . He died at Mount Vernon in December 1799 and is interred there. His funeral procession passed through Alexandria in a public mourning observed for weeks afterward.
Associated places
- 1755–1755
George Washington, then a colonel in the Virginia militia, called on Braddock at the house during the 1755 congress.
- 1760–1799
George Washington owned and worked River Farm as one of the five farms of his Mount Vernon plantation.
- 1761–1799
George Washington owned and expanded Mount Vernon from 1761 until his death in 1799.
- 1773–1799
Washington owned pew 59 from the church's opening until his death.
- 1785–1799
George Washington served as a founding trustee of the Alexandria Academy from its 1785 charter and bequeathed $4,000 in his will toward free education of poor children at the school.
- 1796–1799
Washington danced his 1798 and 1799 Birthnight Balls at the tavern.
- 1798–1799
George Washington carved the 2,000-acre Woodlawn tract from his Mount Vernon estate as the wedding gift for Lawrence Lewis and Nelly Custis in 1799.
- 1799–1799
Alexandria held Washington's memorial service at the Meeting House on December 29, 1799.
Sources
- 1.
Mary G. Powell, The History of Old Alexandria, Virginia, from July 13, 1749 to May 24, 1861, Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1928.
Book
- 2.
T. Michael Miller, Artisans and Merchants of Alexandria, Virginia 1780-1820, Heritage Books, 1991.
Book
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